Heather Broster
A few years back, I remember being in the kitchen with my Italian mother-in-law, helping her prepare a shopping list for the week. The Monday meal was going to consist of her famous zucchini fritters, so I diligently started writing out the word: zucchini… “Zucchini? Don’t you mean zucchine?” she asked, peering bemused over my …
There are numerous false friends in Italian and English, but few cause as much confusion as libreria and library. Although they share the same origin – the Latin word libraria – they mean two very different things. The Italian libreria has retained the original Latin meaning, bookshop or bookstore, whereas the English library denotes the …
The word for a shell, or seashell, in Italian is just as beautiful as the object itself: conchiglia. It can be traced back to the Latin conchylium which in turn comes from the Greek konkhýlion, a derivative of kónkhē meaning “concavity”. So if you ever have trouble recalling this word, just remember that shells are …
There are certain words that just don’t translate. Some of those words are original Italian words that we English speakers have adopted into our own language. This is especially true when we talk about Italian food. Many of the words we accepted into the English language still have the same meaning as the original Italian. …
Modo is a word that means various things in Italian, but three of the most common translations are way, method and manner. It derives from the Latin modus (“measure”) and can easily be recalled by thinking of the word mode in English. Because modo is a masculine noun beginning with a consonant, it takes the …
Biberon is the Italian word for a baby bottle. It entered the language via the French biberon which can be traced back to the Latin verb bibere (to drink). It is an invariable masculine noun, which means that its form does not change in the plural. II bambino preferisce il seno al biberon. The baby …